Five reasons Clemson football could embarrass Notre Dame
The Clemson football team will travel up to Notre Dame Stadium this Saturday night to take on the Fighting Irish in a game that will have the eyes of the nation watching.
The Tigers and Fighting Irish will be featured on ESPN College GameDay and the matchup will kickoff at 7:30 p.m. on NBC.
While most expect this to be a hard-fought game, there are actually some areas that could present a problem for Notre Dame. Here’s a look at five reasons Clemson football could end up embarrassing the Fighting Irish Saturday evening.
5. We’re not expecting a drop-off at the QB position
Trevor Lawrence won’t be suiting up and playing Saturday evening, but that doesn’t mean we should expect there to be a significant drop-off.
Notre Dame has some holes in its secondary and true-freshman D.J. Uiagalelei proved last weekend that he’s no slouch when it comes to finding the open man and getting the ball to his playmakers. After all, he threw for more than 300 yards and accounted for three touchdowns in a game where it would’ve been very easy for him to lose his poise with all that went against the Tigers.
When you take that into account, the truth of the matter is that we’re not expecting a major drop-off at the quarterback position and Notre Dame is going to have to hope for other positions and areas to break down instead.
4. Tigers are starting to be disrespected, at least a little bit
No one’s out there saying that Clemson isn’t a CFB Playoff team or that the Tigers aren’t as good as we thought originally.
That being said, we’re seeing more and more analysts bump Alabama and Ohio State ahead of the Tigers and, in some cases, Clemson is becoming an afterthought.
Sound familiar? It only seems to happen every single year.
This program plays its best when it has some type of disrespect to feed upon- even if it’s ever so slight and sometimes nonexistent- and they’re beginning to have that, especially coming off the close game against Boston College.
3. Notre Dame’s offensive strength is what Clemson shuts down best
Notre Dame isn’t necessarily a one-dimensional offense, but there’s no denying that the strength of this Irish offense rests upon the offensive line and that running game.
The Irish are averaging 5.1 yards per carry as a team on the season and their star running back- Kyren Williams– has 105 carries for 600 yards (5.7 YPC) and seven touchdowns.
While the Fighting Irish certainly have a dominant rushing attack, the truth is that Clemson tends to fare well against those type of teams. The Tigers match up on the inside and there have been very few teams ever in the Brent Venables era to be able to establish a running game throughout the entirety of a game.
2. All the pressure is on Notre Dame
Let’s also not forget that there’s an added amount of pressure on Notre Dame to win this game that doesn’t necessarily rest on Clemson football.
Of course the Tigers want to win, but even if they lose, they’re not out of the CFB Playoff race by any stretch. The playoff committee will basically give Clemson a mulligan with Trevor Lawrence out assuming the Tigers come back and win the rest of their games, including a rematch against Notre Dame in the ACC Championship.
On the other side, though, the Fighting Irish have all kinds of pressure to win this game. If they can’t beat Clemson at home with no Lawrence, how are they ever expected to beat the Tigers in a rematch on a neutral field with Lawrence?
Notre Dame has to win this game to prove it is a legitimate contender, whereas Clemson is kind of playing with house money. That pressure could cause some uncharacteristic mistakes of the Irish.
1. The Fighting Irish don’t have the athletes on the outside
Chase Claypool, Cole Kmet, Chris Finke. All those guys are gone.
If you look back at the Boston College game, what you’ll notice is that the Eagles made a difference with their outside playmakers, in particular Zay Flowers.
Notre Dame simply doesn’t have the talent or athleticism on the outside to really stretch that Clemson defensive backfield and that has proven to be trouble for teams against this defense.
If you can’t get a running game established and your receivers can’t create separation, it could be a long night for the Fighting Irish.
We’re not expecting a blowout in favor of Clemson football, but all we’re saying is that it won’t be surprising if the Tigers exit Notre Dame Stadium with a commanding victory.